Daily Digest: Tempo Is Weird

Tempo doesn't care about card quality, it doesn't care about how much your deck costs, and it doesn't care about how you would have won next turn. Tempo only cares about getting the jump on you and staying ahead long enough to kill you before you kill them.

However, in a weird way, tempo decks care about card advantage. The biggest advantage a tempo deck has is the virtual card advantage it gains by not giving you enough time to cast all your spells. In order to do that, you probably need to have a lower curve than average, and this deck certainly delivers on that.

To accomplish that goal, it runs such hits as Young Wolf and as many Pongifys as are legally allowed. It may seem weird to use so many, but aside from being good against Splinter Twin, they probably get cast on your own creatures far more often than your opponent's. Targeting your own Young Wolf or Strangleroot Geist levels up your own creature thanks to undying, plus it creates a 3/3 creature for you on the cheap. With Cloudfin Raptor and Experiment One, you can have some pretty sick early turns. From there, Mana Leak, Remand, and Vapor Snag maintain your advantage.

This deck is very cheap to build, even for a Modern deck. Obviously some Misty Rainforests would be a slight upgrade for the manabase, but when you're likely building on a budget, it doesn't make much of a difference. I doubt many games are won or lost on the back of Yavimaya Coast damage or because you couldn't fetch the basic Forest with your Flooded Strand.

About Gerry Thompson

Gerry Thompson is a Constructed specialist, Platinum pro, and former SCG Tour end boss. His career highlights include twelve Grand Prix Top 8s with two wins and seven SCG Invitational Top 8s with two wins. He won Pro Tour Amonkhet, lost in the finals of Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan, and made the Top 8 of Pro Tour Gatecrash. Many of the first SCG Tour records were set by him.